If you were killed in battle you were buried where you fell with a rifle stuck in the ground and helmet left on top of it to mark your grave. I was fortunate enough to be given access by the French military to the only such grave that has been left like that after all these years. There is a wooden cross that was placed there after the war but the soldiers helmet and other belongings are still there today and havent been moved since his death in 1917. Mr Sheil, from Oxford, has taken more than 12,000 photos of the Western Front over the last six years for the project to mark the 100th anniversary of the start of the war in 1914. Some of the locations he has captured today include a snow-covered Tyne Cot cemetery near Ypres where 12,000 British servicemen are buried, a rainbow over the British trenches at Messines Ridge and frozen shell holes at Ouvrage de Thiaument, the scene of the Battle of Vedrun where 250,000 French and German soldiers were killed. Haunting: The Fort de Douaument - a defence near Verdun, France which saw one million casualties in the Great War - from Mike St Maur Sheils collection Mists of time: Flooded fields on the Yser plain in Belgian where battle one raged. Michael St Maur Sheils pictures reveal modern landscapes shaped by war
Posted on: Wed, 12 Nov 2014 18:48:34 +0000
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